Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day011.18 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 MR RAMPTON: It does not matter. Forget it. The cover is different from mine. Forget it, Professor van Pelt. It was only going to be an illustration. Do you say that an Entwesungsofen would not be a Zyklon-B piece of equipment? A. No. The Zyklon-B, they did not have an ofen for that, first of all. They were called Kammer and they are larger, and they would be called gas Kammer. So there is a very specific product. A Topf Entwesungsofen is a very specific product they sell. They manufacture it in Erfurt and they sell as a single piece. So, yes, this would not have been a Zyklon installation. Q. Is it in any sense permissible, sensible or clever to try to translate "Entwesungsofen" into "Vergasungskeller"? A. No. They have nothing to do with each other. Q. So do you have an estimate of what these two hot air or steam autoclaves were for at crematorium 2? A. The interesting thing, of course -- I can speculate one . P-157 way and I can base myself ---- Q. Offer your best guess. A. I give two best guesses. One is that since the sonderkommando were going to live there and they lived in an enclosed compound there, they would need to have some kind of disinfestation installation. It is a first guess, but the problem is that we do not have really any other documentation except these two things. The more likely guess, however, is that these were actually going to be the Entwesungsofen which were going to be installed in the Zentralzaume (?). What was happening is that since December 1942, right between crematorium 3 and crematorium 4, the SS was first planning, and then from mid 1943 onwards they were constructing, a large new delousing installation which did not use Zyklon, but only used the Topfentwesungsofen and autoclaves. So, when one actually starts to look at these documents and also at the Wedach document which was introduced by Mr Irving, we are actually dealing, I mean the Wedach document, we are clearly with activity that is going on for the Zentralzaune. So the problem, of course, in the document on 13th April is that it mentions crematorium No. 2 right in that sentence, and I have no explanation, I have no other documentation to either confirm that they were at that time creating these two entwesungs ofen or had ordered it for the crematorium. At the same time I know . P-158 that a lot of that ordering is being done for the Zentralzaune which is being constructed right next door, and that is where I would like to leave it. MR IRVING: If you look at the last page, my Lord, on that you will see there is a further reference to disinfestation equipment for crematorium No. 2 in August. MR RAMPTON: Yes, that is right. Absolutely right. That is where I started as a matter of fact. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that is what I thought. Why do you get August, because that is the date of the document? MR RAMPTON: That is the date. It is 20th August, the document. The top right-hand corner, my Lord. Do you see any reason, Professor van Pelt, to disassociate the August invoice relating to Entwesungslager for crematorium, it does not say there, crematoria 2 and 3, from the piece of paper relating to the two Topf Entwesungsofen for crematorium 2? A. No, they seem to belong together, but, you know ---- Q. In this same part of the folder, I warned you this would be disorderly, we find at page 6, this is written on the bottom right-hand corner I hope in red ink, we find what I think is the Topf patent application for its multi-muffle furnace, do we not? A. Yes. Q. I would not dream of asking you to read it out or anything like that. I am told that I got this in a muddle when . P-159 I was cross-examining Mr Irving. Would you just explain what this is and how it relates to what you have told us? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you give my the reference again, Mr Rampton? MR RAMPTON: Yes, it is in tab 4 of K 2 and it is page 6. It is a long document, ending up with a drawing on page 18. A. Shall I explain, shall I go paragraph by paragraph and give a summary of the paragraph? Q. No, nothing like that. I would just like you to summarize what the effect of the patent application is on your judgment about how the incineration was in fact carried out, according to the accounts of the eyewitnesses, in the big crematorium at Auschwitz. A. This patent application is based on, the proposal for this patent application is to create a furnace in which one continuously feeds corpses at the top, and which by their own weight, so to speak, these corpses fall through a number of shelves, so to speak, and in that process are being reduced to ashes. It refers back to the experience with mutli-muffle ovens which is at the end of page 1 and No. 2, that that one wants to make something which is even working even faster. I just want to go very, very quickly through this, because the important thing here, of course, would be also ---- Q. It may be quicker, Professor van Pelt, rather than your scanning that long and no doubt extremely boring document, . P-160 if we turn to one which is not nearly so boring, although it is much longer, which is your report at page 538. A. OK. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am afraid I have completely forgotten what is supposed to be the significance of the patent application one way or the other. MR RAMPTON: I could tell your Lordship but then I would be giving evidence and I cannot do that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am simply asking what case is sought to be made, but perhaps it is better elicited from Professor van Pelt. MR RAMPTON: The case sought to be made is that it explains how it was that they were able to incinerate as many corpses as they could, and also how they managed to use as little fuel a these were able to do. A. Yes, I was looking for that particular sentence, because I did not want to quote the sentence from memory. Q. I think you will find it in translation on pages 538, 539. A. This is what it says here at page 540, it says: "Pre-heating of such an oven should take at least two days. After this pre-heating the oven will not need any more fuel due to the heat produced by the corpses." Q. Read on, will you. A. "It will be able to maintain its necessary high temperature through self-heating". Q. Carry on. . P-161 A. "But to allow it to main a constant temperature it would have become necessary to introduce at the same time so-called well fat and so-called emaciated corpses, because one can only guarantee continuous high temperatures through the emission of human fat. When only emaciated corpses are incinerated, it will be necessary to add heat continuously. The result of this will be that insulation could be damaged because of the dust created temperatures and one would expect shorter or longer break downs". Q. That document, Professor, is this right, is in its origin quite unrelated to what went on at Birkenhau? A. It is quite unrelated you say? Q. Unrelated. A. No, its origin is of the fall of 1942 and the ovens in crematoria 2 and 3 only came into operation in April 1943. However, the multi-muffle ovens were already used in crematorium No. 1 since August 1940. So the principle is the same in the ovens in crematorium 1. So clearly they are using the principle which has been the experience that has been gained in crematorium 1 in creating this patent application. Q. I am grateful. There is no doubt about the authenticity of this, is there, as an original German document written by Topf for their patent agents? A. No, it is registered in whatever the patent ---- . P-162 Q. How well does that document what we see here on page 540, I do not need you to look at them, how well from memory does that chime with the descriptions given by the eyewitnesses, including Hirst, of how this procedure was carried out in practice? A. What is very important in the descriptions of the sonderkommandos is that they talk about, with a certain kind of care, they would bring corpses of people of different sizes into the muffles, exactly to -- no, I cannot say that because they do not actually give that explanation. But here actually is given an explanation, a thermodynamical explanation why that would have been done. Q. I think Tauber was quite specific about it, was he not, about using fat corpses? A. Yes. Q. Indeed on the trial run I think they were given fat corpses, says Tauber, in March 1943, were they not? A. I would like to see that thing. Q. We can look at it later. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What you quote in your report does not read like a patent application. Is it a quote from the patent application? A. We go to 808 ---- Q. I think you are quoting another author, are you not? A. No, this is the comment. Sorry. MR RAMPTON: This is the interpretation. . P-163 A. This is the comment written by a number of engineers. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It probably does not affect the point. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, one can see how they have dealt with it, how Topf dealt with in the last paragraph of the quote on page 539. A. Yes, one of the important lines in that thing, of course, is they are actually not incinerating any more, but they are literally burning corpses. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: The passage from Tauber's evidence or testimony, call it what you like, is on page 535. At the top: "The corpses of wasted people with no fat burned rapidly in the side muffles and slowly in the centre one. Conversely, the corpses of people gassed directly on arrival not being wasted burnt better in the centre muffle. During the incineration of such corpses we used the coke only to light the fire of the furnace initially, for fatty corpses burn of their own accord thanks to the combustion of body fat". It is the same opposite on the previous page in relation to crematorium 1. He actually says in relation to crematorium 2 and 3: "I know from the experienced gained by observing cremation in crematoria 2 and 3 that the bodies of fat people burned very much faster. The process of incineration is accelerated by the combustion of human fat which thus produces additional heat." . P-164 While we are on Tauber, as a matter of fact, Professor van Pelt, I think Mr Irving said he was emotional or something of that kind. Do you remember that question? A. Emotional? Q. Yes, emotional or unreliable because he was over-emotional. A. Yes, vaguely. Q. I do not know what it was. You have never interviewed Mr Tauber, yourself I take it? A. No. Q. He is not still alive I suppose? A. No. Q. Do you know Jean-Claude Pressac ever met him? A. No. Q. Are you familiar with the introduction to the Tauber chapter in Pressac's book? A. I remember vaguely. Q. Would you like to have a look at it? It should be in H2 (vi) I think, at tab 5. I am using my own copy of Pressac. You use yours as well, if you like. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do I need to look at this? MR RAMPTON: Yes, I think so. I am not going to read it out. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Every time Pressac is mentioned I mean to ask who he is? MR RAMPTON: He is a Frenchman. . P-165 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Could you be a little bit more helpful than that? MR RAMPTON: I think I better defer to the witness. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor van Pelt, I should know and I just do not. Who is Pressac? A. He is a pharmacist in the town of Ville de Bois or the village of Ville de Bois south of Paris, 20 miles south of Paris. Q. He his an historian? A. He is a self-taught historian. He seems to have come from the circles of Faurisson originally. It is not exactly clear what his relationship was to Faurisson. Then he went to Auschwitz in the early 80s and saw the building material, the building archive material, and was convinced that Faurisson was wrong and started publishing about it in 1983. Q. Now you say that I remember. Yes. Thank you very much.
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